Personal Narrative: Dealing With Adversity

Imagine being at the peak of your high school career, personally, academically, and athletically. For me, that was my sophomore year. I was selected to be on the homecoming court, I won a free class ring, and a free corsage and boutonniere for prom. I was on my way to a 4.0 grade point average. I was pulled up to Varsity basketball, I became the 100 meter hurdle regional champion, and I qualified for two events at the Division 4 State meet for track and field. In one split second, a clip of a hurdle, that was over. My first race of the day was the preliminary 100 meter hurdles. Once the race started, I was calm, focused, and determined. I was starting to make my way up to the front of the pack when I clipped my trail leg on the eighth hurdle.

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

From my adversity and hardship I unveiled who I am and what I am capable of. I ventured outside my comfort zone; challenging myself to start new conversations everyday and foraging friendships faster than a tempest. I also started to express my curiosity and discovered the metamorphosing world in which I live by throwing myself into the wilderness with Outdoor Ed. Most importantly, I embraced others and helped them be happy, to stop them from feeling alienated like I did. l saw that I held the power and I hoped that I could help others see the same.

I was incredibly excited. School was starting tomorrow. The first few days were just icebreakers, learning everyone’s names, blah blah blah. Then the real learning began. Of course, teachers started to write our lessons on the board. I started to notice a few changes in what I was seeing. The words they were writing were just...black lines! I didn’t pay much attention to it, I just asked my friends what the board said. As the year went on, it affected me more and more, especially in math. I saw a 2 as a 6, and and an A as an 8.

Over my years of school, one big influence on me has always been sports. Ever since a young age, I have always enjoyed playing and watching sports. In my four years in high school, I have fell in love with the sport of lacrosse.

When I tell people I am from Phoenix, Arizona, they look at me funny and ask, “What are you doing in Connecticut?” My response is always the same, “I’m on the UConn women’s basketball team.” Sport has played a large role in my life and has definitely impacted me. My parents were key factors that helped me get to where I am now. Both of my parents were college athletes. My father played basketball at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Before that, he was an all-state basketball player, tennis player and pitched for his high school baseball team. My mother played tennis at Marquette University. She was voted most valuable player all four years and won the prestigious McCahill Award as the university’s top student-athlete her senior year. She came from a tennis family. Her two sisters, her dad, and several uncles played college tennis. Her father, like her, won the McCahill award as Marquette’s top student-athlete. To this day, they are the only father-child combination to win the award. My parents met in line for drug testing when they were both athletes at Marquette. With parents so into athletics, it is not surprising that they decided early on in their relationship that their children would play sports. They decided my brother and I would participate in sports at a young age and knew that sports would teach us valuable life lessons.

Hi iam Edgardo Flores i was born in casa grande, az not that far away from our state capital,Phoenix, Az.theres nothing better to do in a hot summer than going out with the friends to a lake and have a blast riding jet skis boats and my favorite, swimming!My activites of the day are shooting,riding horses,and my favorite one is quad riding.Thats right! ive been doing these fun exciting hobbies since i was 9 years old.pretty young huh?

1. The 2nd case study made me reflect on my first head coaching job in football. I was hired by a school in south Texas with the help of a friend I coached with in Oklahoma. He had moved back to his hometown and started teaching and coaching at his high school. He contacted me about the opening and two months later I was hired. I hired him to be one of my assistants and even made sure that he was paid well as a thank you. I was very disappointed with the way he coached that year. I had already make arrangements to move him to a non-coaching position for the next season. I realize I never spoke with him about my expectations or made him aware of how I felt during the season. I identity with Dr. Skinner is some regards. I was caught up in the other aspects of teaching, coaching, and AD duties, I neglected to take care of that issue. I understand that it is OK to hire a trusted colleague or friend but the expectations of them should not be any different of anyone else.

Being involved in high school athletics has had a huge impact on my life. It has not only taught me the meaning of hard work and persistence but giving me the opportunity to build confidence on and off the court. When i was younger i would tend to keep to myself, always sitting through class hoping to never be called on because if I were to be called on, there would always be a chance to do or say something wrong. It wasn't until later, when I came to the conclusion that I feared failure, and at that time I would rather stay quiet and give in to that fear rather than face it. It was ultimately through sports that I came to the conclusion that you can't always do everything perfectly, and in the end all I could do was take the little control

Adversity has always been a close cousin. Being born in a third world country, I had to overcome adversity arriving to America. Once in America I walked with adversity as I faced many cultural and lingual barriers. In my journey with my cousin we shared many priceless moments. One of the moments that stuck to me was my recent trip to Pakistan.

“Let me tell you something you already know; the world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s bout how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” That inspiring quote was announced by Rocky Balboa, Actor: Sylvester Stallone, in his movie. Rocky is a perfect example of adversity, he faced it with his boxing career.

After much consideration my husband and I have decided that Michael will not longer be attending The Reason For Hope effective immediately. I welcome the chance to sit down and talk with you should you choose to discuss the situation. It was not easy to arrive at this decision but it has been a long time coming. We have been increasingly more uncomfortable with your program in recent months for the reasons below.

Going into my junior year of cross-country and already making it to state the previous year, there was no way I wasn’t going again. Well, as many people have experienced before me; I was faced with adversity. Now some people decide to hide from it and others seek to conquer the task. I had to choose between the two when I started experiencing growing pains in my right hip.

I was born in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico. Although you may assume that I possess a lot of traits of a stereotypical “Latina” I do not. I wasn't raised in a big family. It was just my parents, my younger brother, and me. I was raised by an engineer and an economist both of whom have always encouraged the idea of creativity, curiosity, and innovation. Traveling is big part of my life, and helped shape me at a very early age. Along with traveling came moving to the United States, which made it hard not to reflect on identity and heritage.

My initial perceptions about the students of St. Angela were very stereotypical. Honestly, I expected those students to come from single parent backgrounds and come from a low income household. I expected to deal with students who live life in a survival type of manner. What I mean by survival type of manner is for one to be on defense seeing the type of the children are from the Austin area. Walking in to St. Angela I expected to deal with kids that didn’t listen and know respect for authority. I expected this due to my upbringing in the same neighborhood.